System and method for dynamically configuring content-driven relationships among data elements

ABSTRACT

A computer system configures data elements based on textual sources by identifying subunits of a textual source, indexing the subunits into a sequence comprised of terms, identifies based on a target a base subsequence of the sequence, and stores the terms in such a way that they can be expanded or contracted and a user can rapidly and efficiently derive relevant information and context even from a vast amount of information including by navigable display to the user. Other methods and systems of configuring and displaying data elements from textual sources are provided.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/527,928, filed Jun. 20, 2012, which is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/240,377, filed Sep. 29, 2008, nowU.S. Pat. No. 8,229,971, issued Jul. 24, 2012, the disclosures of eachof which are incorporated herein in their entirety.

BACKGROUND

With the ever-growing diversity and number of information sources, eachday brings more and more total information through which to sift. Ourability to identify and aggregate only the most relevant piecesinformation from diverse sources has not kept pace with the dramaticincrease in the sheer volume of available information.

In addition, information may also be very time-sensitive, in which caseprompt and systematic review of large volumes of information may be verydifficult to achieve. Meanwhile, both the importance and value of thisinformation drops steeply if it cannot be mined in a timely way.Accordingly, there is a need for locating relevant information from avolume of information in prompt, effective manner.

The task of targeting and aggregating small but specific chunks ofinformation from within documents and across diverse sources presentsthe following challenges. First, the particular information of interestwithin a document is often surrounded by pages of dense prose, much ofwhich may or may not be of interest. Second, the most relevantinformation may need to be extracted from across diverse sources andpresented collectively so that it can be effectively examined. Third,the daunting problem of how much context to include for each extractedpiece of information must be solved.

Digital reading systems have been developed that permit users to accessdiverse documents electronically by loading them into a digitalworkspace. This enables users to interact with documents electronically.However, merely facilitating the availability of documents in electronicform may help somewhat but brings its own potential for “informationoverload”. It does not enable the user to rapidly “home in” on the topicof interest, and simultaneously creates the potential for “false leads”which waste time in follow-up.

In addition, there are particular difficulties when the user already hasa collection of documents that may be deemed “equally” relevant—as bythe mere return of results from a search—but is faced with timeconstraints, with seemingly repetitive information which in factconceals subtle and important differences, and with the sheer volume ofinformation.

In an effort to help address the issue of content comparison, documentpage retrieval systems have been developed which provide both keywordsearch and a zoom-in interface. In this approach, the process beginswith a continuous tree-map visualization of a document collection. Asthe user types a search keyword, the view can be limited only to thosedocuments that matched the query. The user can then zoom-in on adocument and begin reading the page where the match is found. The usercan then click on another document that had a match and zoom in on itand read it. Such concept is shown in “UC: A Fluid Interface forPersonal Digital Libraries”, and “A Document Corpus Browser for In-DepthReading”, which relate to interface systems.

While this approach provides some means for the comparison of contentpage-to-page, the method for aggregation of content is fixed (to pages)and inflexible (units of content cannot be altered). The method is fixedin that the user is presented with an entire page from a given source,even though the interest might be a single sentence on that page. Themethod is inflexible in that there is no mechanism to include/excludeappropriate relevant context. The user has to jump from one page toanother page and cannot juxtapose only the relevant pieces ofinformation from multiple sources. Also, relevant pieces of informationmay be imbedded in text that may not be relevant to cross-documentcomparability.

SUMMARY

The present invention discloses configuring relationships among dataelements of a textual source to enable a user to locate relevantinformation from a volume of information in a prompt, efficient manner.The invention enables formatting and/or displaying the most directlyrelevant data elements from a collection of sources along with the mostappropriate amount of context for data elements within the collection.

An example method according to the present invention may includeidentifying one or more subunits of a textual source, indexing thesubunits to form a sequence comprised of one or more terms, identifying,based on a target, a base subsequence of the sequence, and storing thebase subsequence in such a manner that it can be expanded by adding oneor more terms, or contracted by omitting one or more terms.

An example method may also include deriving from the textual datasources one or more subunits by obtaining separable text boundaries,indexing the one or more subunits to form a sequence comprised of one ormore terms, identifying, based on a target, a base subsequence of saidsequence, and formatting the base subsequence in such a manner that auser is able to navigate through the terms of the base subsequence.

An example system according to the present invention is acomputer-readable storage medium storing one or more subunits of atextual source which, when executed by one or more processors, causesthe one or more processors to identify one or more subunits of thetext-based source, to index the subunits to form a sequence comprised ofone or more terms, to identify a base subsequence of the sequence, andto store the base subsequence in such a manner that it can be expandedby adding one or more terms or contracted by omitting one or more terms,and to format the base subsequence in such a manner as to permit thedisplay thereof on a monitor.

An example apparatus according to the present invention discloses ameans for storing a text-based document in a computer-readable medium,means for identifying one or more subunits of the text-based document,means for indexing the subunits to form a sequence comprised of one moreterms, means for identifying, based on a target, a base subsequence ofthe sequence, means for storing the base subsequence in such a mannerthat it can be expanded by adding one or more terms, or contracted byomitting one or more terms, and means for formatting display of the basesubsequence in such a way as to enable a user to navigate therein byexpanding the amount of terms or contracting the amount of terms.

DRAWINGS

These and other features and advantages of the invention can be shown byway of illustrative examples, and not by way of limitation, shown in thefollowing figures.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a computer system by which the inventionmay be implemented.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a source text containing information units.

FIG. 3 shows an example of information subunits derived from a sourcetext.

FIG. 4 shows an example of how information subunits derived from asource text can be configured.

FIG. 5 shows an example of certain search criteria that can be utilizedto result in source text configuration.

FIG. 6A shows an example of a display depicting a text input box, and asearch button and added information.

FIG. 6B shows an example of a screen depicting the entry of a searchquery in a text input box, and added information.

FIG. 6C shows an example of a screen depicting how a user can navigatethrough a text and other information.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the Next operator by which a base subsequencecan be navigated.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a computer system by which the presentinvention may be implemented. It will be recognized that one of skill inthe art can employ multiple architectures, components andinterconnections with which to carry out the present invention.

There is provided a configuration server 101 that can carry out numerousfunctions. It will be appreciated that there may be one or moreelectronically interconnected servers that carry out activities ofconfiguration server 101, depending on the architecture andfunctionality desired. Further, configuration server 101 can comprisevarious modules for carrying out discrete computing tasks, and thesemodules may be located external to configuration server 101.Configuration server 101 comprises a processor 102, a memory 103 and adatabase 104 in which data, including text-based data, is stored. Again,there may be multiple processors, memories and databases in orassociated with configuration server 101, and one or more of these, asthe artisan will appreciate, may be located external to configurationserver 101. For example, a database in which data is stored may beexternal database 105. Software modules 109 assist in carrying out theinvention; as can be appreciated, given the modular nature of softwareimplementation, the software may be provided within (or generallycentralized within) configuration server 101, or may even be distributedproximate to or remote from it, in larger or smaller functional engines,as with cloud computing.

There is also provided a display 108 or a display 106 where a user, inelectronic communication with configuration server 101, can viewrelevant processing activities on a display 108, 106 such as computermonitor. Display 106 may be architecturally proximate to configurationserver 101, and a user may view configuration activities in such amanner. Or, a user at a display 108 can be in electronic communicationwith configuration server 101 where configuration information istransmitted from configuration server 101 through a network 107 such asthe Internet. This would be the case for a user who is benefiting fromthe invention by Internet access, and may be via a PC, workstation orother device (such as a handheld) at work, at home, at an educationalinstitution, and so on. In either instance—either where a user isarchitecturally proximate to the configuration server or communicateswith it via the Internet—communication can flow in either direction,i.e., from the user toward the configuration server 101 and vice versa.Accordingly, FIG. 1 is illustrative only and the invention is notlimited thereto.

Database 104 and/or database 105 may comprise a relational database. Itmay be based on another database model, such as object-oriented orhierarchical. These databases contain among other things textual datathat is processed according to the present invention. By way ofnon-limiting example, database 104 may include the following tables.There may be a Document Table, and each record in this table containsinformation about a document. The fields in the table may include:unique Document ID (numeric, auto-incremented), original id or nameprovided by the source, file path (either the folder in the server orsome URL), author, publisher's name, date published, and other domainspecific metadata. There may be a Full-text Table, and this table storestext format of each original source document. Thus, PDF files areconverted into text and stored in this table. The fields of this tablemay include: Document ID (same as in the Document Table), Full-text ID(numeric, auto-incremented), method of converting to text (manual, orsome particular commercial software (e.g., easyPDF)), date when fulltext was created, and a field relating to the actual text. There may bea Master Sentence Table. As discussed elsewhere, a data elementaccording to the present invention may be comprised of a sentence. Eachsentence in every document may be stored in its own record. The fieldsin this table may include: Document ID, Full-text ID, Sentence Number(sequential integers starting with 1, within a given document), and afield for the actual sentence. Other fields may be included, e.g.,paragraph number. There may be a Collection Table. To understand thepurpose of this table, assume that the end user has a document libraryfor a particular domain of applications. The end user may select arelatively small number of documents for further analysis. This subsetis referred to as a collection. The end user might have createddifferent collections for different purposes. The Collection Tablestores information about these collections. The fields in this tableinclude: Collection ID (auto-incremented), Collection Name, CreationDate, Query used to create the collection, etc. The Collection DocumentsTable may store information about the list of documents in each of thecollections created by the user. The fields in this table may include:Collection ID, Document ID. Also, there may be Collection-SpecificSentence Tables. For each collection, there may be a table of dataelements such as sentences. These sentences are the ones in thedocuments in the given collection. These tables may have identicalstructures as the Master Sentence Table; in that sense, they may becopies from the Master Sentence Table. Moving on, as for processor 102,it may be a general-purpose processor or customized.

The invention can be implemented on multiple platforms. A non-limitingexample is by means of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl). Further,JavaScript may be used to enhance navigation efficiencies. JavaScriptmay be attached to a navigational link on the web page. The JavaScriptknows, from the web page, the displayed sentence's number and itsdocument ID. From those inputs, JavaScript sends a request to retrieveprior/next sentences. On the server side, PHP or any other server-sideprogramming language may be used to make database queries. Once the datais retrieved from the database, the server program prepares it fordisplay and may build, e.g., an HTML page in response to the originalrequest.

Each document in a collection of documents is segmented into distinct‘data elements’. The collection of stand-alone documents is thusconverted to, and conceived of as, a collection of stand-alone dataelements. In general, a data element is the smallest chunk ofinformation that conveys a complete thought. As such, data elements maybe sentences.

Full text search can thus be applied on individual data elements, andthose that match can be retrieved as stand-alone entities. These sets ofdata elements may be displayed on a web page organized by the sources towhich they belong. Placing them on a page ‘side-by-side’ allows directcomparison of the different sources' perspectives on that particularsub-topic of interest.

As a side note, it is important to contrast the retrieval of acollection of smaller chunks of information, i.e., data elements, withthe common search engine goal of retrieving a collection of entiredocuments.

Some of the retrieved data elements, based on matching a searchcriteria, may convey sufficient information as stand-alone entities.Most of the time, however, a data element will require a range ofsurrounding sentences, or data elements, for appropriate context.Therefore, the set of criteria-matching data elements may be conceivedas ‘entry-points’ for retrieving more complete information on the topicof interest.

Since the matching data elements serve as the most direct and optimalpoints of “entry” for reading or browsing information from across acollection of sources, the normal way of reading or browsing acollection of documents—one document at a time and top to bottom withineach document—turns out to be a special case. When matching dataelements are used as entry points, the user is no longer constrained bythe rigid order of data elements in the source documents. The documentsare ‘disaggregated’ into smaller chunks of information—buildingblocks—that can be reconfigured.

The invention is not limited to a collection of documents or sources. Itmay also be used for books that are electronically digitized. The bookfirst needs to be segmented into data elements. The data elements may besentences, subtitles, captions, charts, or figures. The differentmentions of a topic in a book could be retrieved into a page, and thosematches can be used as entry points to retrieve surrounding dataelements for context, if needed.

There are a number of full text search technologies that may be used.They range from simple phrase, word, and even single character searches,to the use of more advanced tools such as ‘regular expressions’. Regularexpressions enable one to target very specific patterns of text in thedata elements.

Further explication of a non-limiting embodiment is describedhereinafter.

A data source, to be understandable to the human reader, can beconsidered as a text. A text, of course, can be on any topic—industryreports, an article, a book, etc. A text is comprised of units ofinformation. These units of information vary in scope from the smallestdatum to words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc., to the entire textitself. In order for the reader to derive any value from a text,however, the text must first be accessed in a way useful to the reader.

With reference to FIG. 2, information units are identified in the sourcetext. By way of non-limiting example, these may be sentences 201, 202,203. The artisan will recognize that there are procedures that can beused to identify and disambiguate sentence boundaries in a text. Anexample of a rule would be: ‘a period followed by a capitalized wordsignifies a sentence boundary’, thus disambiguating the source text intosentences followed by periods 204, 205, 206, which of course is carriedon throughout the text. There are exceptions to this rule. For instance,proper nouns that follow abbreviations such as Dr. or Mr. do not signifysentence boundaries. But rules can be designed to handle the exceptionsalso.

In a given text, sentences occur in series and the same sentence mayrepeat later in the text. In addition, the relative position of thesentences is critical—changing the relative positions of the sentencesin a given text could change the message in the text. Thus, the streamof sentences in a text can be represented as a sequence, specifically “asequence comprised of sentences.”

Mathematically, a sequence of length n is defined as a function from aset of consecutive integers (which is called the index set={1,2,3, . . ., n}) on to a set of objects. The indexed elements of a sequence arecalled terms. Thus, the sentences in a text form a sequence by simplynumbering them consecutively, starting with the integer 1. The firstterm of the sequence is the first sentence, the second term of thesequence is the second sentence, etc., and the last term of the sequenceis the last sentence of the text. In FIG. 3 are shown terms 301, 302,303, 304, 305, and 306.

It is important to note that the indexed order does not change as alogical matter. In other words, the consecutive nature of the terms ispreserved: Term 1 precedes Term 2, Term 2 precedes Term 3, and so on.The artisan will recognize that as a physical matter terms may be storedin various places in memory; however, as a logical matter, order shouldbe derivable. Further, the term memory is interpreted as one or multiplememory units in communication. Thus, the invention is carried out withthe assistance of a computer-readable medium such as a computer memoryin which may be stored data elements such as subunits of a textualsource, a sequence(s) obtained by indexing the subunits, a basesubsequence(s), and also an expanded sequence or contracted subsequence.As one of skill can appreciate, with respect to the options for usingcentralized and/or distributed memory storage and processing, the memoryunit(s) employed according to the present invention may be one memorydevice or multiple storage devices logically or physically proximate toeach other, or even remote, so long as they can intercommunicate tocarry out the present invention. Thus, the computer memory describedwith reference to the invention is not necessarily a unitarydevice—i.e., it is not necessarily one memory unit—but rather can bemultiple memory units in electronic communication, wherever located.

Each data element may be stored in a database. Then database queries canbe applied in order to retrieve matching ‘records’ of data elements. Oneway to store information about the relative order of data elementswithin a document is to associate a composite key which each dataelement reflects: a unique id for the document plus an integer indexthat indicates the sequential position of a data element within thatdocument.

For any given sequence (Term 1, Term 2, Term 3, . . . , Term n), asubsequence may be generated by taking one or more of the terms in thegiven sequence. The relative position of the terms selected must bepreserved. For instance, a subsequence may be generated from the abovetext by taking the first term, then the third, and then the fifth term,thus creating a subsequence of length 3 (i.e., length of asubsequence=total number of terms in the subsequence).

Notice that the first term in the original sequence is the first term ofthe subsequence; the third term in the original sequence becomes thesecond term of the subsequence; and the fifth term of the originalsequence becomes the third term of the subsequence. Thus, in FIG. 4, wehave a three-element base subsequence 401, 402, 403, so named because itforms the base of further processing.

Any number of terms may be selected to generate a subsequence of theoriginal sequence. A single term may be selected; two terms or threeterms, and up to n, if there are n terms in the original sequence. Infact, there are 2 to the power of n, or 2^(n), possible subsequences,for sequences (Term 1, Term 2, Term 3, . . . , Term n).

Total Ordering versus Partial Ordering

It should be noted that within a document there is a first sentence, asecond sentence, a third sentence, etc., and a last sentence. This iscalled total ordering. However, there is no natural order betweensentences from different documents. We cannot say that the firstsentence from one document precedes the first sentence from anotherdocument. Therefore, the set of all data elements from the collection ofdocuments forms what is mathematically called “partial ordering.”

We point out this because for our purpose we may introduce a “totalorder” into the collection of all the data elements by defining a globalindex. For instance, we can introduce an ordered pair of integers toindex the data elements: (j, k). The first element, j, would index thedocuments in the collection and the second integer, k, would index thesentences within each document. The ordering of the data elements withineach document is strict as imposed by the source document, but theordering of the documents can be re-defined by the user.

Base Subsequences

Now base subsequences are discussed. A base subsequence is so namedbecause it is a subsequence whose terms are selected on the basis oftheir meeting specific criteria and which form the base for furtherprocessing. A base subsequence is determined on the basis that its termsmatch a search criteria. In other words, if a term in the originalsequence matches search criteria, that term will be selected to be aterm in the base subsequence.

Now search criteria are described. The terms in the sequence may be thesentences from the text. As such, a full text search can be applied oneach of the terms. In an example implementation, as seen in FIG. 5, thesystem searches for terms that match the string of characters input bythe user. The string of characters may denote a phrase, word, or even asingle character (e.g., “$”) 501. All the terms that match the inputstring of characters are selected to form the base subsequence 504.

The system may utilize more advanced, but well established, searchcapabilities that enable users to express their search criteria moreprecisely. For example a search algorithm that can handle Booleanoperators (for example, “sales” AND “revenues” NOT “earnings”) candramatically increase the precision of standard full text search. Searchalgorithms based on “regular expression” are by far the most powerful inspecifying conditions with great precision 502.

Finally, the latest development in search engine technologies is the socalled “semantic search” 503. These technologies seek to find matchesbased on the meaning of words rather than on matching a string ofcharacters.

Display of Retrieved Matching Results

One non-limiting illustration is shown in FIGS. 6a-6c . At the top ofthe page is a text input box and a search button, FIG. 6a . Below thetext input box is a list of the collection of documents the user hasselected. Observe that initially, the input box 601 is clear, and thereare no sentences on the page, only meta data (document title, author,data, . . . ) on each document 602, 603, 604, 605 in the collection.

FIG. 6b shows the input text ‘string’ in the input text box 606. Afterthe user clicks the ‘search’ button 607, the resulting data elements areretrieved and displayed under the corresponding source documents. Noticethat there was a data element 608 matched from the first document. Thismeans that the first document contained one instance of the string‘string.’ Two data elements 609 and 610 from different parts of thesecond document are retrieved meaning that two instances of ‘string’were found. Two consecutive data elements 611 and 612 were retrievedfrom the third document. FIG. 6(b) shows one instance of the target,which represents information that is sought. The target may be an inputstring, although it will be appreciated that the target may be obtainedby various means, generated by or in connection with server operationseither based on user input or automatically, and so on.

We refer to the results retrieved and displayed after a search query asthe ‘entry points’.

What is shown is only one way to display the results; one has severaloptions. For instance, the documents that do not have a matchingsentence may be listed together at the bottom of the page.

Retrieving Context for Matching Results

FIG. 6c illustrates how context is retrieved seamlessly. The results ofclicking sentence 609 in FIG. 6b retrieve the immediately followingsentence 613 with the result shown in FIG. 6c . Clearly, sentence 613adds context to sentence 609. Sentence 609 in turn can be clicked andthe following sentence can be retrieved and displayed. The process canbe repeated and allow context to be included seamlessly, as needed,around any of the displayed sentences.

There are multiple options as to where the clickable area or buttonsshould be. One option could be the entire second half portion of adisplayed sentence for retrieving immediately following sentences; and,the first half portion of a displayed sentence for retrievingimmediately preceding sentences. Alternatively, one can introduce smallicons to the right of each sentence, one for next and another forprevious sentences; the icons may be visible only when the mouse ishovering in the displayed target sentence. JavaScript may be used toaccomplish these objectives.

Similarly, by double clicking a sentence we can eliminate it.Alternatively, we can introduce a specific ‘delete’ icon to the right ofthe target sentence. Where the icons or the triggering area should belocated is highly customizable.

FIG. 7 shows in more detail how the “Next Operator” can act to expandthe terms in the subsequence.

The “Next/Previous operator” is described with respect to Nextoperation. (As one of skill will recognize, the same can be done withthe Previous operation.) The Next operator takes two inputs: asubsequence, e.g., 701, and any one of the sub-sequence's terms, e.g.,702. The Next operation inserts the term C 703 which is the term next toA 702 in the original sequence 700.

Since each sentence is sequentially ordered reflecting its relativeposition in the original source document, when the displayed sentence isclicked the system knows which sentences to retrieve. If the indexnumber of the displayed sentence is k, the Next operator retrieves thesentence index k+1; similarly the Previous operator retrieves the k−1sentence. We can similarly define a “Delete” operator, which takes anydisplayed term (sentence) and deletes it from the display.

The configuration of data elements can be represented on a display, fornavigation by a user. As the artisan will appreciate, the display can beimplemented by a conventional computer monitor or other monitor, or byanother apparatus permitting display such as a handheld device, althoughother display options are possible. There may be one, or multiple,entities that process and/or store the information that is displayable.The display may be implemented by a display apparatus connected,physically or logically, to these processing and/or storage entities. Byway of non-limiting example, the method and system of the presentinvention may be carried out by a “client/server”-type architecture,where the flow of information goes from a server computer or computersto a client computer or computers. The user for whom the displayfeatures of the present invention are implemented may be located at theclient side or the server side, or at another node in electronicconnection with the client or server side.

In the preceding specification the present invention has been describedwith reference to specific example embodiments thereof It will, however,be evident that various modifications and changes may be made withoutdeparting from the broader spirit and scope of the present invention asset forth in the claims that follow. The specification and drawings areaccordingly to be regarded in an illustrative rather than restrictivesense.

I claim:
 1. A system for configuring relationships among data elementsof a textual source, the data elements stored in a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium, comprising: a processor, and a computer memoryin communication with said processor, wherein the processor isprogrammed to: identify one or more subunits of said textual source,wherein said one or more subunits correspond to, respectively, one ormore sentences, and store said subunits in a computer memory; index saidsubunits to form a sequence, said sequence comprised of one or moreterms, and store said sequence in said computer memory wherein saidsequence preserves said one or more terms in an order determined by saidcorresponding subunits in said textual source; identify, based on asearch query, a base subsequence of said sequence, said base subsequencecomprised of one or more terms of said sequence, said base subsequencepreserving the order of said subsequence, wherein each of said one ormore terms of said base subsequence contains said search query; storesaid base subsequence in said computer memory in such a manner that saidbase subsequence is structured for expansion by adding one or more termsfrom said sequence wherein each of said one or more added terms fromsaid sequence does not contain said search query; add, in response to afirst user request, said one or more added terms from said sequence,causing an expanded result; store the expanded result; and format fordisplay, in response to a second user request, the expanded result.
 2. Asystem for configuring relationships among data elements of a textualsource, the data elements stored in a non-transitory computer-readablemedium, comprising: a processor, and a computer memory in communicationwith said processor, wherein the processor is programmed to: identifyone or more subunits of said textual source, wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more sentences, and storesaid subunits in a computer memory; index said subunits to form asequence, said sequence comprised of one or more terms, and store saidsequence in said computer memory wherein said sequence preserves saidone or more terms in an order determined by said corresponding subunitsin said textual source; identify, based on a search query, a basesubsequence of said sequence, said base subsequence comprised of one ormore terms of said sequence, said base subsequence preserving the orderof said subsequence, wherein each of said one or more terms of said basesubsequence contains said search query; store said base subsequence insaid computer memory in such a manner that said base subsequence isstructured for contraction by deleting one or more terms from saidsequence wherein each of said one or more deleted terms from saidsequence does not contain said search query; delete, in response to afirst user request, said one or more added terms from said sequence,causing a contracted result; store the contracted result; and format fordisplay, in response to a second user request, the contracted result. 3.A computer-implemented method for configuring relationships among dataelements of a textual source, the data elements stored in anon-transitory computer-readable medium, the method comprising:identifying one or more subunits of said textual source, wherein saidone or more subunits correspond to, respectively, one or more dataelements, and storing said subunits in a computer memory; indexing saidsubunits to form a sequence, said sequence comprised of one or moreterms, and storing said sequence in said computer memory wherein saidsequence preserves said one or more terms in an order determined by saidcorresponding subunits in said textual source; identifying, based on asearch query, a base subsequence of said sequence, said base subsequencecomprised of one or more terms of said sequence, said base subsequencepreserving the order of said subsequence, wherein each of said one ormore terms of said base subsequence contains said search query; storingsaid base subsequence in said computer memory in such a manner that saidbase subsequence is structured for expansion by adding one or more termsfrom said sequence wherein each of said one or more added terms fromsaid sequence does not contain said search query; adding, in response toa first user request, said one or more added terms from said sequence,causing an expanded result; storing the expanded result; and formattingfor display, in response to a second user request, the expanded result.4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more subtitles.
 5. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more captions.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more charts.
 7. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more figures.
 8. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium storing executable programinstructions for causing a device having a processor to: identify one ormore subunits of said textual source, wherein said one or more subunitscorrespond to, respectively, one or more data elements, and store saidsubunits in a computer memory; index said subunits to form a sequence,said sequence comprised of one or more terms, and store said sequence insaid computer memory wherein said sequence preserves said one or moreterms in an order determined by said corresponding subunits in saidtextual source; identify, based on a search query, a base subsequence ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence comprised of one or more terms ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence preserving the order of saidsubsequence, wherein each of said one or more terms of said basesubsequence contains said search query; and store said base subsequencein said computer memory in such a manner that said base subsequence isstructured for expansion by adding one or more terms from said sequencewherein each of said one or more added terms from said sequence does notcontain said search query; add, in response to a first user request,said one or more added terms from said sequence, causing an expandedresult; store the expanded result; and format for display, in responseto a second user request, the expanded result.
 9. A system forconfiguring relationships among data elements of a textual source, thedata elements stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium,comprising: a processor, and a computer memory in communication withsaid processor, wherein the processor is programmed to: identify one ormore subunits of said textual source, wherein said one or more subunitscorrespond to, respectively, one or more sentences, and store saidsubunits in a computer memory; index said subunits to form a sequence,said sequence comprised of one or more terms, and store said sequence insaid computer memory wherein said sequence preserves said one or moreterms in an order determined by said corresponding subunits in saidtextual source; identify, based on user input, a base subsequence ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence comprised of one or more terms ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence preserving the order of saidsubsequence, wherein each of said one or more terms of said basesubsequence contains said search query; store said base subsequence insaid computer memory in such a manner that said base subsequence isstructured for expansion by adding one or more terms from said sequencewherein each of said one or more added terms from said sequence does notcontain said search query; add, in response to a first user request,said one or more added terms from said sequence, causing an expandedresult; store the expanded result; and format for display, in responseto a second user request, the expanded result.
 10. A system forconfiguring relationships among data elements of a textual source, thedata elements stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium,comprising: a processor, and a computer memory in communication withsaid processor, wherein the processor is programmed to: identify one ormore subunits of said textual source, wherein said one or more subunitscorrespond to, respectively, one or more sentences, and store saidsubunits in a computer memory; index said subunits to form a sequence,said sequence comprised of one or more terms, and store said sequence insaid computer memory wherein said sequence preserves said one or moreterms in an order determined by said corresponding subunits in saidtextual source; identify, based on user input, a base subsequence ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence comprised of one or more terms ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence preserving the order of saidsubsequence, wherein each of said one or more terms of said basesubsequence contains said search query; store said base subsequence insaid computer memory in such a manner that said base subsequence isstructured for contraction by deleting one or more terms from saidsequence wherein each of said one or more deleted terms from saidsequence does not contain said search query; delete, in response to afirst user request, said one or more added terms from said sequence,causing a contracted result; store the contracted result; and format fordisplay, in response to a second user request, the contracted result.11. A computer-implemented method for configuring relationships amongdata elements of a textual source, the data elements stored in anon-transitory computer-readable medium, the method comprising:identifying one or more subunits of said textual source, wherein saidone or more subunits correspond to, respectively, one or more dataelements, and storing said subunits in a computer memory; indexing saidsubunits to form a sequence, said sequence comprised of one or moreterms, and storing said sequence in said computer memory wherein saidsequence preserves said one or more terms in an order determined by saidcorresponding subunits in said textual source; identifying, based onuser input, a base subsequence of said sequence, said base subsequencecomprised of one or more terms of said sequence, said base subsequencepreserving the order of said subsequence, wherein each of said one ormore terms of said base subsequence contains said search query; storingsaid base subsequence in said computer memory in such a manner that saidbase subsequence is structured for expansion by adding one or more termsfrom said sequence wherein each of said one or more added terms fromsaid sequence does not contain said search query; adding, in response toa first user request, said one or more added terms from said sequence,causing an expanded result; storing the expanded result; and formattingfor display, in response to a second user request, the expanded result.12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein said one ormore subunits correspond to, respectively, one or more subtitles. 13.The computer-implemented method of claim 11 wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more captions.
 14. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 11 wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more charts.
 15. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 11 wherein said one or moresubunits correspond to, respectively, one or more figures.
 16. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium storing executable programinstructions for causing a device having a processor to: identify one ormore subunits of said textual source, wherein said one or more subunitscorrespond to, respectively, one or more data elements, and store saidsubunits in a computer memory; index said subunits to form a sequence,said sequence comprised of one or more terms, and store said sequence insaid computer memory wherein said sequence preserves said one or moreterms in an order determined by said corresponding subunits in saidtextual source; identify, based on user input, a base subsequence ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence comprised of one or more terms ofsaid sequence, said base subsequence preserving the order of saidsubsequence, wherein each of said one or more terms of said basesubsequence contains said search query; and store said base subsequencein said computer memory in such a manner that said base subsequence isstructured for expansion by adding one or more terms from said sequencewherein each of said one or more added terms from said sequence does notcontain said search query; add, in response to a first user request,said one or more added terms from said sequence, causing an expandedresult; store the expanded result; and format for display, in responseto a second user request, the expanded result.